From Our Readers

In regard to letters in support of Attorney General Eric Holder’s decision to seek the death penalty in the case against alleged Boston Marathon bomber Dzokhar Tsarnaev, I have an idea: How about skipping a trial and just sending a lynch mob over to the prison and stringing Dzokhar up to a tree and hanging him? After all, there’s no doubt that we’ve got our man.

Hey, we don’t bother with probable cause anymore when gathering phone conversations and emails or when confiscating stuff if someone’s accused of drug possession. We hold people indefinitely and torture them in draconian prisons without trial. Our former president told us the Constitution is just a piece of paper. (He should know: he was crowned, not elected.) Having lived through the Kennedy assassination, the Vietnam War and 9/11, I am totally cynical and suspicious of our government and our media. As Cheryl on WWUH’s 9/11 Wake-Up Call says, always be suspicious when a terrorist attack occurs at the same time as a drill for a similar incident. That’s what happened on Marathon Day. A military contractor, Craft, was exercising a bomb drill with bomb-sniffing dogs, standing on roofs and walking around with backpacks identical to the ones the bombs went off in.

I’d like to know why [Ibraghim] Todashev, a friend of Dzkohar’s brother Tamerlan, was shot in Florida right after he supposedly confessed to killing folks in Waltham with Tamerlan. And why did police shoot hundreds of bullets into the boat where Dzokhar was hiding? There’s much that is shady about this. Their uncle, who was so quick to condemn them, had CIA connections, as did Tamerlan. Look at the way Boston was shut down during the manhunt. Our CIA folks are masters of false flags. Your paper just published a letter about Hillary and the bandwagon mentality [“Ensnared by Goddess Hillary,” February 13, 2014]. This just could be another example. I highly doubt you’ll ever see this kid get a fair trial.

Charlotte Burns

Palmer

Voice Male: Kudos All Around

Your piece on Voice Male: The Untold Story of the Profeminist Men’s Movement (“Voice Male,” February 20, 2014) was a great review for an excellent book. But you failed to mention that the book is published by the Northampton-based independent press Interlink Publishing. It is nice when a local publisher is acknowledged for publishing important works.

Michel Moushabeck

Interlink Publishing

USDA Puts Industry Before Public Safety

The U.S. Department of Agriculture is still expanding the list of retailers carrying meat unfit for human consumption to Alabama, Florida, Mississippi, New Mexico, Oregon, Washington, and 970 locations in California alone. About 8.7 million pounds were shipped throughout 2013 by Rancho Feeding Corporation of Petaluma, Calif. The recall comes in the wake of the USDA’s new “inspection” program that allows the meat industry to increase the speed of processing lines and replace federal inspectors with plant employees. According to the USDA’s inspector general, this has resulted in a partial failure to remove fecal matter, undigested food and other contaminants that may contain deadly E. coli and listeria bacteria.

Traditionally, the USDA has catered more to the interests and profitability of the meat industry than the health and safety of American consumers. Consumer interests come into play only when large numbers of us get sick. Having the USDA protect consumers is like asking the fox to guard the henhouse. The Obama administration should reallocate responsibility for all food safety to the Food and Drug Administration. In the meantime, each of us can assume responsibility for our own safety by switching to the rich variety of soy-based meat products offered by our favorite supermarket.